ABSTRACT
This chapter situates the global private water sector in time and space by providing an up-to-date overview of private water participation at the global scale, in terms of leading companies, markets, and services. While Veolia and Suez maintain their position as the largest water transnational corporations worldwide, water firms from developing countries have emerged as prominent competitors (particularly from China, Brazil, India, and the Philippines). Water businesses no longer focus on long-term concessions, but now offer “smart-climate” public-private partnerships and develop new services such as underwater drones and smart sensors. In addition, transnational water corporations have gone from operating in large cities of developed countries to extending their services to medium- and large-sized cities of emerging economies. This chapter also argues that privatization has been replaced by the emergence of a “revisited” public-private partnership model that no longer promotes the private sector as a funding provider, but rather, as a consultant with strong management skills from which public companies can learn. This new generation of water partnerships is driven by climate change challenges and the need to build more resilient and inclusive cities that can face water-related issues such as extreme climate events and infectious disease outbreaks.
